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‘Tortured and Shot’: Survivors Recall Massacre of 70 Men by Myanmar Military in 2024

Soldiers told survivors that the massacre in Byain Phyu was retaliation for the defeat and casualties the military suffered at the hands of the Arakan Army in the Battle for Kyauktaw.

Survivors of the 2024 massacre in Byain Phyu village sit near an IDP camp in Ponnagyun township of Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Six trucks packed with heavily armed military personnel moved slowly into Byain Phyu, a predominantly Rakhine Buddhist village on the outskirts of Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

The timing of their arrival – 8 a.m. – was odd. Soldiers usually patrolled the village and carried out raids in the afternoon, evening, or night.

About 200 military personnel disembarked from the vehicles after halting at the center of the village. They divided equally into two groups and began to march in opposite directions along the main street passing through the village. Their task was to surround the village of about 2,000 residents and ensure that nobody escaped. A third group of about a dozen military personnel led by a young officer announced over loudspeakers that all residents should assemble at the village center without delay.

Military trucks rumbling through the streets were not unusual in Byain Phyu and neighboring villages in Sittwe’s suburbs. Knocks on doors of homes in the dead of the night were not infrequent either. Residents were familiar with the military thrashing people and dragging them to prison on mere suspicion of seditious activities.

But what unfolded between May 29 and 31, 2024, in Byain Phyu was totally unexpected. The torture and execution of at least 70 residents in that period would change the lives of its residents forever.

On February 12, 2026, five survivors of the massacre, including three women, narrated their experiences to The Diplomat at Ponnagyun Township in Myanmar, where they are currently lodged.

A map of northern Rakhine state, with the location of Byain Phyu village marked in red. Map via Wikipedia/WikiEditor2004

How the Bloodbath Unfolded

By 9 a.m. on May 29, 2024, the military had surrounded Byain Phyu.  Residents were instructed to assemble at the village center, where two streets intersected.  About a dozen elderly, physically challenged and sick people were dragged out of their homes by soldiers at gunpoint. Some bikers and daily wagers heading to Sittwe were stopped and forced to return to the village.  Among them was an artist Kyaw Kyaw Aung, who was going to Sittwe to sell his paintings. He was compelled to return, and his knapsack with paintings and his motorcycle were confiscated.

Back at the center of Byain Phyu, a burly middle-ranking officer, believed to be an army major, directed all the men to move to the outskirts of the village, near a tea shop.  They were blindfolded and their hands were tied behind their back.  An estimated 800 men, including teenagers, were herded to the spot. At 6 p.m., they were forced to move to another location on the western fringe of the village.

Another young officer instructed the women and children to sit on both sides of the cobbled roads. He and some soldiers looked closely at the women and children, paused to question those who appeared “suspicious,” and ordered them to remain seated until “further instructions.”

“We never imagined that something very sinister had been planned. We thought the soldiers were tasked to identify some people from our village, who would then be questioned and imprisoned,” said Hla Hla Khin, whose son and husband were among those herded to the periphery of the village.

The situation took a different turn at 7 p.m. when intermittent screams were heard. The men were being tortured. Then, after about an hour, gunshots were heard at regular intervals that lasted till 4 a.m. the following morning.

“At dawn the next day, we saw smoke billowing from the cemetery that was 100 meters from the village periphery. It was then that we realized that many residents might have been killed,” recalled Ma Wong Than, whose father was among the men killed that night. “Their corpses were being burnt at the cemetery.”

Even as the women and children, who were lying flat on the street, wondered what had happened, a middle-aged Burmese trader from Bago in the Burmese heartland, who had been living in Byain Phyu temporarily, was seen walking from the cemetery toward the village center. Soldiers had released him after he revealed his Burmese identity.

Hla Hla Khin said that the trader “looked scared and was hurrying to his residence” when the women stopped and questioned him. “He hurriedly narrated that about 70 men had been killed. Many residents were tortured and shot multiple times. The corpses were either buried or cremated at the cemetery and near the lake,” she recounted.

According to the trader, about a dozen residents who were thirsty asked the soldiers for water. They were forced to drink the soldiers’ urine from plastic bottles; those who protested were beaten with rifle butts, including one middle-aged man who succumbed to injuries two days later.

At least ten residents were unable to walk and speak after being tortured. All the men were likely whisked away to the prison soon after, Hla Hla Khin recalled, quoting the trader.

Saw Tamana Mue, who is Karen by ethnicity and hails from Kayin State bordering Thailand, confirmed the trader’s account. A worker at the docks in Sittwe, he was staying temporarily at the residence of his wife, a Rakhine Buddhist, at Byain Phyu. He was released early morning along with the Burmese trader and about a hundred elderly and sick residents, but not before being tortured.

“All 800 men were divided into three groups and asked to kneel down. Everybody was blindfolded, but I could sense what was happening around me. The torture and killings began after sunset. I believe that more than 70 were killed,” Saw Tamana Mue recalled.

Saw Tamana Mue said that about half a dozen men were apprehended while trying to escape. They were stabbed multiple times and then shot dead. He confirmed the trader’s account that some residents were compelled to drink the urine of some soldiers when they had asked for water.

“They suspected me of being a functionary of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Saw Tamana Mue recalled. “I had a narrow escape.”

A satellite image of Byain Phyu village, via Google Earth.

Why Was Byain Phyu Targeted?

By mid-2024, the Arakan Army (AA) had wrested control over 70 percent of Myanmar’s Arakan, which spans southern Chin State and Rakhine State, from the military. Only the core region of four townships – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, Maungdaw, and Manaung – remained under military control. The AA had already infiltrated the suburbs of these townships.

AA’s political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), had set up its own administrative mechanism in most of the villages, including Byain Phyu. This was the strategy the AA and ULA adopted toward villages around other townships that the AA had captured in the past.

Early in 2024, the Arakan Army had reportedly demanded the military’s surrender before it launched attacks on Sittwe. Consequently, the military began erecting defensive installations around the city and relocated soldiers’ family members to safer places. Around the same time, AA had intensified its attacks in several townships near Sittwe such as Rathedaung, Pauktaw, Kyaukphyu, and Ramree after liberating the commercial hub of Kyauktaw.

The battle for Kyauktaw was among the fiercest, a senior AA commander recounted, lasting for over a month and culminating in the Myanmar military suffering defeat with heavy casualties. Nearly 300 military personnel had also surrendered to the Arakan Army.

All five survivors of the massacre said that soldiers had repeatedly reminded residents about the casualties the military suffered in the battle for Kyauktaw. “A middle-ranking officer said that the primary objective in targeting Byain Phyu was to avenge the deaths of military personnel and their family members in Kyauktaw. He stressed that the village would be erased,” Khin Khin Hla said.

At the periphery of the village where the men were herded, officers told residents that the military had received information that every household was paying 2,000 kyats ($0.95) to the AA each month and that the village was actively collaborating with the outfit by providing the latter with recruits and information about military formations in Sittwe.

The military had compiled a list of 11 persons from the village whom it suspected of being ULA functionaries.  These people were identified, asked to kneel in a row, and quizzed about their links with the rebel outfit. Not surprisingly, the officers were not satisfied with their replies.

“They were beaten with chains and shot dead. Four among them were already unconscious before the trigger was pulled on them,” said 17-year-old Maung Wong, whose father disappeared from Pathein prison where he was imprisoned. Maung Wong was also tortured and imprisoned for eight months before being released from Sittwe prison.

Of all the townships under military control, Sittwe is the most strategic. The city is a commercial hub and the nucleus of a flagship multi-modal connectivity project being built by India to provide an outlet to its landlocked northeastern region.

An AA victory in Sittwe would provide it with a huge military advantage in the campaign to attack and liberate other townships in Rakhine state. The military’s defeat would also boost the morale of the resistance movement in other regions of the country at a time when the military has succeeded in regaining lost territories in some areas.

The loss of Sittwe would compel the military to transport men and materiel from far-off bases outside of Rakhine to defend the other townships. So it is not without reason that the military has gone all........

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